Video transcript: The Shim Sham Club
In 1930s Britain, queer life had to take place in secret. Queer relationships were not accepted or even acknowledged and sex between men was criminalised. Clubs that welcomed queer clientele provided a place where LGBTQ+ people could be themselves openly. But these places often faced raids.
Two such clubs found a home in Soho, London: Billie’s and the Shim Sham, described as a den of vice and iniquity by the Met police. Billie’s was located on Little Denmark Street in the West End and had a formal set up with a dance floor and a grand piano.
Shim Sham was nearby, located on Wardour Street. It was a jazz club attracting famous African-American jazz players and holding regular bottle parties, which were in danger of breaching alcohol licensing laws. The club was a safe haven for those shunned by society or by the law.
On the 5th of July 1935, the Shim Sham Club was raided on the grounds of liquor license evasion and was charged with operating as an unlicensed club. This is a clear example of how the policing of necessary spaces like the Shim Sham meant that they struggled to exist and were often very temporary.
Stannard’s description of life inside the Shim Sham was uncomfortable to read. His detailed surveillance of people simply existing in what was supposed to be a safe space was a stark reminder of the heavy policing of queerness in this period.
It wasn’t just the police who were concerned by spaces like the Shim Sham. Letters from concerned residents demonstrate the generally hostile attitudes towards homosexuality. One citizen described the Shim Sham as a rendezvous for homosexual perverters, with another using the word repulsive to describe it. People were fearful of being associated with queerness in a society that so plainly condemned it.
21 of the 37 were found guilty. Billie Joyce, the owner, was charged with keeping a disorderly house. A statement from PC Murray described the effeminacy of the men in the club almost as though that in itself was a crime, and described them as powdered, wearing rouge with eyebrows made up or wearing pink nail polish.
A letter from the mother of one of those arrested sums up the hostility and fear surrounding queerness in this time period. She is desperate for her son not to be associated with the club describing him as a very good boy always, who has worked very hard, as though someone with good qualities like that could not possibly be queer.
Though queer spaces in Britain today are not under attack in the way they once were, many still fear dying out. LGBTQ+ people across the world still fear imprisonment when living and gathering openly. Queer people today, particularly young queer people feeling isolated or ashamed, need community just as much as they did in 1935. Queer spaces like the Shim Sham and Billie’s must be protected and treasured.